Visit to Shanghai

French Concession


Shanghai People's Theater: Mary, Owner and Howard

Visit to Shanghai

Lexi and I went to Shanghai the first week of May to check out the city and also look into Shanghai Ballet. It was an interesting trip. Lexi and I were thrilled to find so many familiar and western things. Our first day we ended up eating at a small book café; we both ordered a sandwich! I had pastrami! It ended up being an extra treat when we had a chance to talk with the owner of the café. Her shop is located where the famous and controversial author Eileen Chang used to live.

We connected right away and discovered that Mary would be visiting Stanford this summer for a swim camp for her son. Of course this is right in our neck of the woods and we are looking forward to meeting again this summer in the bay area. Mary also invited us to attend the Shanghai Ballet with her the next evening and Lexi I could not have been more thrilled.

So the next day we met a family from the states and visited with them in their home and got to know their lovely family. It was a mutual friend here in Kunming that connected us. Then that evening we met at Mary’s café and headed to the ballet of the White Haired Lady. The woman who offered Mary and us the ballet tickets is a famous talk radio host and author in Shanghai. We ended up attending the ballet with several authors and immediately were introduced to the owner of the People’s Theatre.

The ballet itself was ……….interesting and very political. We were quite surprised by the story. It took place during the revolution, a battle between the rich landlords and the poor farmers. The rich beat and mistreated the poor and in the end the new communist peasants and regime took revenge and murdered the landlords. Once again I was surprised how many guns were on stage in a country where guns are outlawed. During the performance several authors sat behind us who were watching this performance for about the 50^th time. They had been tasked to communicate about this performance to the people about the message.

Chinese audiences are interesting. They talk through the entire performance and at the end they all clap together in unison while each dancer takes their bow.

The next day we visited Shanghai Ballet where young girls begin boarding about 8-10 years old. It was a beautiful campus with more dance studios than I can count. The girls graduate and reach a professional level at 16 and feed to into professional companies around the country like Shanghai Ballet. It was interesting to see pictures on the wall of the dancers and ballet we had seen the night before.

Lexi had a private audition which was extremely intimidating while 5 people watched her make up her own dance without music. The people were very kind and it was a great opportunity. Yesterday we received notice that Lexi did not get in. But, we are all okay with that. It was a nerve wracking decision and we feel confident the right outcome came about.

The following day we tried to visit BSF, went all the way there and discovered they were not meeting due to the China Labor Day holiday. We were disappointed but, glad to have the chance to see where they meet. We visited the French Concession area of Shanghai that evening and it was beautiful! Surprisingly a very European feel.

The next day we headed home to Kunming to prepare for our next crazy trip…….Gaunang.